It has never been so easy to have a career in music.
Barriers to entry have never been lower. Gear is cheaper than it has ever been and can produce higher quality results, the need for musical skills are low (although skill can help, but technology can do more), and the cost of distribution is close to zero.
The access to fans—and the ways to find fans—have never been easier.
The options to generate income (and to transmit money into your bank account) have never been more plentiful.
So why isn’t everyone who makes music a multimillionaire?
There is probably a range of reasons for everyone who has “failed” to make a living making music. For instance, they may be awful, they may have gotten ripped off, or they may have had difficulty standing out from the crowd.
I can’t stop you being awful and having no talent. I can’t stop you from failing. However, I can suggest a few reasons why many people do not have the career in music that they want—and while it may sound glib, those reasons are quite simple:
A failure to connect with and nurture a fan base.
A failure to take responsibility. If you don’t have a better idea of how your career should be run than anyone else has, then you won’t be successful. Taking responsibility for making the decisions and living with the consequences is tough, but it’s a crucial part of being successful.
No strategy to achieve the objective. Too many people hope or wish—they don’t sit down and plan each and every step that is necessary to take them from their present position to the place they want to be.
Once started on the path, people often don’t stick to their objective. In other words, they give up too easily, which isn’t surprising when they don’t have a strategy that will get them to where they want to be. And of course, very often, life gets in the way.
Now please don’t misconstrue the point I’m trying to make here. I’m not suggesting that it is easy to be successful, that you don’t need to work hard (you do, very), that anyone who isn’t successful is a personal failure, or that you can be a multimillionaire within a few days. However, I’m stating that it is possible to earn a living by making music, provided you set about that goal with a businesslike approach and have reasonable ambitions.
The purpose of this book is to set out ways that you can proactively start, develop, and manage your own music career so that you can earn your living by making music—whether as a musician playing pop, rock, soul, R&B, classical, or any other style of music; as a songwriter; or as a composer.
In short, this is a “how to” book: I am assuming that you have the musical talent—or if you don’t have the talent yet, that you are actively improving your skills.
I was watching one of those reality TV talent shows where all-comers have the chance of winning a £1,000,000 record deal. The show had reached the initial public auditions (which are mostly stuffed with the deluded and the talentless).
One guy who turned up for an audition was interviewed outside the venue, where he proudly showed off his car. He obviously had spent a lot of time working on his car (or “pimping his ride,” to use the vernacular that I’m sure would appeal to this guy). This interview led me to an obvious question: What is this guy’s passion? Music or his car?
I suspect neither. I suspect his passion is for chasing women, and he sees his car and music as being two ways to achieve his aim.
Now, please do not misconstrue the point I am trying to make. I’m not suggesting that chasing women (and/or men) is wrong. I am simply asking what the priority is in this guy’s life: women, cars, or music? My suspicion is music comes third on his list.
I think there are two easy tests for this guy to check out his commitment to a music career:
Test 1: Compare how much money he has spent on his car to how much money he has spent on his music career.
Test 2: Compare how much time he has invested in his car to how much time he has invested in his music career.
From the sound of his audition, he has never had a singing lesson in his life. I would also guess that he has never spent any of his cash getting inside a recording studio with a hot producer to lay down some tracks.
If I’m right, and music is third on this guy’s list, then music is not a priority for him. Music is either a priority that comes at the top of the list, or it’s not a priority. If it’s not a priority, then a career in music is probably never going to happen.
So what matters to you—your music career or something else?
Are you passionate about music? Are you committed to your music career? Or is music something that comes way down on the list after work, study, home, family, friends, and your other hobbies?
And when you actually get around to music, what are you doing then? Are you spending your time setting up your computer so that it runs your newest piece of software without a hitch? (And when it doesn’t work, are you spending countless hours talking to several software developers, trying to get to the root of the problems and then testing new fixes?) Or, are you getting out there and actually furthering your career?
If music is something you do for fun, that’s great. However, don’t pretend you want it to be a career if it’s just something you do for fun. Please carry on enjoying your music—you may even find you make some money from an activity that brings you pleasure. However, please do not kid yourself that you are trying to pursue a career in music if you aren’t prepared to make the commitment to sustain your livelihood.
If you are certain you want a career in music, you’ll need to deal with all areas of the business if you are to succeed. Realistically, you cannot spend every waking hour making music: Time spent not making music is time you will need to spend on business matters. If you are going to have a career in music, what you are actually deciding is to set up a business, where the product of that business is music and you are the chief executive officer. If you’re not ready for the realities of setting up a business, then you’re not ready to have a career in music.
I would not expect you to have the same passion for the business aspects as you do for the music. However, you will need to have a similar level of commitment. If you can’t commit to doing the business side or ensuring that there is someone to attend to the business side on your behalf, then your musical career will fail.
After this rather harsh introduction, I am going to ask what may seem an odd question: Do you really want a career in music? Take a moment and think about what it means and how you can achieve it. Now, are you really sure you want it?
If you are sure, then answer me a few questions:
What are you passionate about? Do you have a passion to be a writer or a performer? Are you interested in the fame and the adulation, or are you just chasing the money and women/men?
Can you live with the lack of security and especially the perilous state in which your finances are likely to be?
Do you have a husband/wife/significant other? Do you have kids? What are their attitudes about this? Are they happy with the risks you want to take? How will your relationship with these people be affected by a career in music?
If you’re still convinced that you want a career in music after you’ve thought about some of these issues, great. If you’re not convinced, then get a proper job. It will give you far more financial security and probably a much larger income, as well as a pension and healthcare coverage (if you’re lucky). If you’re not 100 percent committed, then why would anyone else want to help you with your career (or risk their career on working with you)?
So, if you’re sure that you want a career in music, when does it begin?
That’s an easy question: Your music career begins whenever you decide it should begin.
You don’t need permission to start your career. Heck, no one is going to give you permission. You don’t need endorsement by a manager or a record company. You don’t need to wait for someone to give you a contract. You just need to decide that your career has started and then take responsibility for making it happen.
So if it hasn’t already started, then your career in music begins today. And once you have made your decision to start your career, the hard work begins.
This book is a guide to the hard work: the practicalities of how you take the decision that you want a career in music and make it happen.
Even if your music career has already begun, this book is still for you. It is aimed at everyone who wants to earn a living making music: musicians, including singers (of course); aspiring musicians; TV talent show contestants; songwriters; beat creators; and music students.
So what do you need to do to have a music career?
The reality is quite straightforward (see Figure 1.1). All you need is an audience—in other words, someone to buy your records—and you’re set.
Figure 1.1. The key to success is blindingly straightforward: All you need is an audience who will buy your music. No audience = no career.
You really do need to get your head around the simplicity of what you need to survive. All you need is a source of income, and then you will have a career. If you like formulas, then let me express it in simple terms: no audience = no income = no career.
You don’t need a record company, you don’t need a publishing contract, and you don’t need a manager—all you need is an audience. At the end of the day, the audience, the fans, or whatever you want to call them are the only people who matter, because they will be funding your career. Without an audience, you will not have any income, and you will have no career.
This book is about the hard work needed to make your music career happen. It is about the hard work that you need to undertake to acquire and keep an audience, and all you need to do that is a strategy.
Business strategy? For the musician? This sounds boring, and it sounds like work.
However, you have a choice here (yes, another choice): Do you want a career in music, or do you want to find a job and become a wage slave?
If you want a career in music, then you’ll have to understand the business aspects. When you’re starting out, you will be dealing with the business aspects directly. As you progress and bring in other people to help you with your career, it is important to understand the business side of things so that you can keep control and ensure you don’t get ripped off (especially when you are dealing with “experts”).
Once you have decided to have a career in music, then you need to dedicate the necessary time and energy (that is, all of your time and all of your energy) to making your career happen. I will go into this in more detail throughout the book, but let me give you a brief introduction to the process you need to follow to have a successful music career:
The first step is to create a product. When I say “product,” I mean something that can be delivered in some form to an audience and that can generate income. This product could be a song (or a collection of songs) packaged as a live performance, as a CD/download, or as a video.
When you have your product, then you need to start finding your audience. These are the people who will buy (or consume) your product.
You then need to start generating an income from your audience. In other words, you need to create products your audience wants to either buy or consume in a manner that generates income.
Once you have established your audience that is consuming your product, you need to keep your audience. It is so much easier to sell to an existing fan than to find a new fan to sell to. As well as keeping your audience, you should look to expand it. An expanded audience will give you:
More people to buy your new products
A new source of people to buy your existing products
Once you have more people to buy your new products, you need to fire up the factory and develop new/updated products so that your audience can keep buying and remain as fans. Without new products, you will lose the relationship with your audience.
When you have an audience, then you need to interact with them. The easiest way to contact them directly will probably be by email, but don’t rule out snail mail and the phone (especially cell/mobile phones with which you can send SMS/text messages to a list of people). However, there are many other ways to stay in touch, in particular through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media conduits, which are becoming an increasingly important element of the strategy of musicians.
Figure 1.2 shows a simple way to start thinking about your business strategy.
One decision you will have to make is where you intend your income to come from. For instance, you could decide that you are purely a live musician, and so your income will be generated solely from live performances. (In other words, you will get your income from the tickets purchased by punters at the gig door.)
Surviving on live gigs alone is likely to be tough, so you might decide you want to sell CDs too, but only CD albums because CD singles smack of a sellout, and you don’t want to mess with downloads. You may also feel comfortable with some merchandising: T-shirts and souvenir programs, perhaps. Then again, you may want to go all the way and generate income from as many (legal) sources as possible, such as all merchandising options (including, perhaps, dolls that look like you), sponsorship deals, and endorsements.
What you decide to do is up to you. For the purpose of this book, I will assume that you will consider any income-generating source, but at least initially, the range of sources is likely to be restricted. (For instance, if the band only started last week, then you’re unlikely to be able to secure an endorsement with a major clothing label...but please don’t let me discourage you if you’ve got something great to offer.)
I would actually go a step further and suggest that you have a range of different income sources—some of which require action by you (for instance, live performances), and others of which do not (such as download sales). By generating income from a range of sources, you will:
First, increase the amount you can earn.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, immunize yourself against one specific market dying.
Now that we’ve had a brief look at the main thrust of the strategy, let me give you some of the logic behind this strategy and some of the reasons why you should consider it.
First, this strategy will help you become profitable (and stay profitable). At its most basic, being profitable means you can generate an income to live on. If there are no profits, then there is no money to buy stuff like food...
This strategy will make you more desirable. If you have a solid business that can generate income, then people will want to work with you. This will mean that instead of approaching industry types, such as managers, record companies, and booking agents, saying “We think we’re going to be huge,” you can approach them with proof of how much money you can already generate. Once you start demonstrating how much you can earn for your business partners, you will be in a better negotiating position.
Your career will last much longer. Instead of being a packaged commodity that is hot today and cold tomorrow (and immediately dropped by a label or other partners), by looking after your fan base, you can expect to continue to make money from your music throughout your working life. You will not be on the shelf at the age of 30 (and left with the prospect of having to find a proper job to support the husband/wife and kids).
You can cut out the middleman. For instance, if you have your own fan base and you know they will all turn up to your gig, then why do you need a promoter for your gig? As you will read later on, if your promoter can bring more people to a gig, that’s great; however, if you have already reached all of your fans (and potential fans), then do you need someone else taking a cut?
In the strategy I have outlined, there is one guarantee of success: your audience.
You don’t need talent, you don’t need connections, but you do need an audience. Without somebody being there to buy or consume your product, you will not have income. Without an income, you cannot put food on the table or keep a roof over your head.
I will repeat this point: The only guarantee of success is your audience.
When you have an audience, your talent does not matter. You may have a voice that makes dogs howl and only be able to play your instrument with one finger (and then not in time—not that the concept of 4/4 time is understood by your drummer). Your shortcomings don’t matter, provided that your audience loves you.
If you have an audience, you will have income and you will have power. Your income means that people will be interested in you. (If nothing else, they will work out what commission they can generate based on your income.) Your income also means that you will have power to negotiate—you will be able to walk away from deals because you already have your own income.
However, I caution you against being too talentless. Although your audience may love you today, will they love you tomorrow? In six months’ time, will they realize that you are a talentless bunch of no-hopers whose songs all sound the same? If you want a long career, you can’t be a novelty act—you need a credible product that will continue selling.
One thing I want to talk about before we go any further is success and what success actually means. There is something of a clichéd view about what success means in the music industry. Many people associate success with multi-platinum albums, huge tours, vast income, many huge properties, substance abuse, and a lot of sexual intercourse. In particular, many people think a career in music equates to riches behind their wildest dreams. This may happen for one or two people; for instance, with assets of around £495 million (around $825 million), Paul McCartney hasn’t done too badly for himself.
However, in any field of human endeavor, some people make a lot of money, but most people do not. Outside of music, those who do not make the huge dollars will still usually earn enough to live a comfortable existence.
I do not wish to discourage you if you have an ambition for a multimillion-dollar income. In fact, I would positively encourage you. If you can follow the principles in this book and become a multimillionaire, then please tell me and please tell everyone else. I’m sure the kudos will increase sales of this book. However, I do want you to think a bit about what you want to achieve with a career in the music industry (beyond frequent, guilt-free sexual intercourse) and exactly how much money you need (rather than want).
The nature of success is hard to define and is personal for everyone. I’m sure we’ve all known of, or have heard about, miserable millionaires and joyful paupers. In thinking about your career, I encourage you to consider your reasonable expectations from a career in music—don’t just think about how much the top stars earned last year (see Figure 1.3). Once you have your expectations, then you can start planning your career and ensure that those expectations will be included in your plan.
Figure 1.3. Earnings of mega-millions will always hit the headlines. (The figures in this graph come from Forbes magazine and show earning during 2010.) But how much do you really need to earn to consider yourself successful?
Here are some of the expectations you may want to consider:
A career in music that spans the rest of your working life (or until you want to end your career in music).
The freedom to make the type of music you want to make without compromise.
Sufficient income to provide for your family and loved ones, and for you all to be able to live in comfort.
The ability to control your life and make the decisions you want to make (for instance, to be able to spend time with your kids when you want to and when they need you).
Sufficient income to save for your retirement so you will still be able to buy food when the music stops.
A flow of income from your music after you have ceased to be active in the industry. That is income from music, not from savings.
As I said, the nature of success is personal. However, for me, a career in which you can earn a living doing what you want to do seems pretty much perfect.
If you would prefer to sit around and wait for some big record-company executive to call you and offer you a deal, please feel free to stop reading now and put down this book. However, if you don’t take control of your music career and make it happen, then it is almost certain never to come about.
There are many other compelling reasons for following the approach I’m advocating here.
The first and most significant reason for the approach that I am advocating is that it puts the relationship between you, the artist, and the fan at its heart. No one else but you, the artist, can have a relationship with your fans. No one else but you can create and maintain this relationship. You wouldn’t expect to get married and then ask someone else to have a relationship with your husband/wife, so why is it acceptable for musicians to ignore the most important relationship in their professional lives?
If you ignore this relationship or leave it to someone else, then eventually your fan base (and remember, your fan base equals your income) will walk away feeling as if they have had cash stolen out of their pockets.
We’re used to talking about the economies of scale. And it’s true; there are many economies to be gained at scale. However, what people think less about is the economies of small—in other words, the things that small organizations can achieve that big organizations cannot.
Once organizations get above a certain size, their overheads grow disproportionately—they have to pay for property, there are staff employed in administration, there are pension costs, and so on. In short, once a company reaches a certain size, it needs to generate a certain level of income just to stay alive.
By contrast, the small organization—and your music career will be a small organization—has much lower overhead. This means you can:
Generate a smaller income, but
Achieve a higher profit.
In short, you can make a living where it would not be economically viable for others—in particular, it would not be viable for others with higher overheads because of the deals they have entered into.
Another reason for following the ideas in this book is that you keep control (see Figure 1.4).
Control is one of those vague terms that musicians usually waffle over without really having any idea of what it means, so let me list some of the areas where you get to have control:
Artistic control. You can write the songs you want, you can record the songs you want to record, and then you can release the songs you want to release.
Deals. You are in control of every deal. You don’t need to sign away any rights. You won’t hear your song used in a TV advertisement for hemorrhoid cream (unless, of course, you want to and you are being financially rewarded).
People. You can deal with the people you want to deal with (and when you want to deal with them). If there is a producer whom you have always wanted to work with, if you have control you can hire that person (provided he wants to work with you). Equally, if there is anyone with whom you wish to collaborate, you can—provided she is willing.
In short, control means you decide every who, what, where, when, and how in connection with your career. In particular, you decide when your career begins and how it is run.
The other great benefit of having control is that the chances of you getting ripped off are reduced. If you have control over all aspects of your business, then there will be far fewer opportunities for shady characters to take a slice of your income.
Talking about the commercial aspects of the music business is not very rock and roll. But remember, what is very rock and roll is ending up heartbroken and busted with no money.
There are certain basic human necessities: food and shelter, to name two. In the capitalist world, you need money to procure food and shelter. I therefore presume you are happy with the basic concept that you need to generate money from your musical endeavors if you are going to eat and pay for a roof over your head.
However, we need to go further than just accepting that you need money to buy food. If you’re not going to pay attention to the business end of the business, then how are you going to know if/when you’re being ripped off?
You also need to ensure that you (and your partners) are financially credible individuals—in other words, you’re not blacklisted with credit agencies or bankrupt. If you lack credibility, then you will find it hard to deal with the banks, which in this wired-up world could be quite a challenge. You will find it hard to use cash or barter if you’re trying to sell your music to someone on the other side of the world.
Beyond owning the relationship with your audience, there is no one way or magical formula to ensure a successful music career, so this book sets out lots of separate ideas. It is up to you how you put these pieces together. How you do so will depend on what you want to achieve and your particular circumstances. You will see that the final part of this book (Part V, “Putting the Theory into Practice”) is dedicated to looking at different ways that you can manage your career.
This flexibility is good news: It gives you many more chances to forge a successful career. However, the range of options also means that you have greater freedom to make mistakes. Although it might be unlikely that you will get anything wrong as such, you are far more likely to do things in the wrong order. We all know that you shouldn’t learn to walk before you can crawl, and this principle applies equally here. For instance, you shouldn’t release a DVD if you don’t have an audience ready to buy it.
As we progress through the book, you will see that there are certain recurring themes. Often I will look at these themes from different angles so you can see how one idea can be applied in several different ways or in different situations.
There are, however, certain principles that are not negotiable. The principles I see as being set in stone are:
Cut the expenses of doing business as far as you can (and in particular, cut your expenses).
Cut out the middleman (or middle-woman) as far as possible, but do not ignore people who can make you more profitable.
Make a living by generating income over a longer period. Don’t look to make a million immediately and then walk away (if you want that, then buy lottery tickets); instead, aim to generate income over your whole career.
This is unashamedly a book about business: My intention is that you will create an ethical, sustainable business. As part of this goal, I focus on how to foster organic growth of your business. I do look at some of the more “hard sell” tactics you can use, but over the longer term, I don’t believe these tactics create a sustainable business, so I have given less importance to them.
There are many opportunities for a musician to carve his or her own career. This book is not a guess about the future—it is about how you can make money and survive now.
The book discusses a range of music business and general business principles. It brings forward a range of tried and tested working practices and combines them with the new opportunities and thinking that are available in the twenty-first century. The combination of tried and tested with new thinking will help you to be successful.
While reading this book, I suggest you keep a pen, a highlighter, and a supply of those little yellow sticky notes close by and mark any areas that are of interest to you. These notes should make it easier to refer back to this book when you are drawing up your own strategy. I also suggest that you re-read this book (perhaps after 12 months) when you want to review or revise your strategy. You may find that ideas that didn’t work earlier are now worth considering.
Before you start reading, let me offer you a few thoughts about the information in this book. If you are of an impatient nature, then skip over the rest of this chapter and start reading Chapter 2, “Building and Keeping Your Fan Base.” However, if you skip ahead, please do come back and read some of these words of caution at a later date.
Each chapter in this book is intended to be freestanding. You don’t need to read it from start to end, although you will find the content does flow more logically if you do. There are five parts, and you may find this book easier to digest if you take the chapters in each part together.
Each of the five parts has its own distinct focus.
Part I, “Getting Started.”. This part introduces the main themes and ideas that are then applied throughout the book.
Part II, “The Fan Base.”. This part looks at your most important asset (your fan base) and considers how to nurture these people for your and their mutual benefit.
Part III, “The Product.”. This part considers the things you do that make money and discusses how to do these so that (a) your fans are happy and (b) you make money.
Part IV, “The Nasty Commercial Bits.”. This part looks at the whole money issue—in particular, what money you can make and where it comes from.
Part V, “Putting the Theory into Practice.”. This final part takes all of the ideas discussed in the book and shows how you can mix and match the concepts to create your own successful music career.
You will see that I have cross-referenced between chapters. I have also overlapped the content where this aids the understanding (or where the need for emphasis justifies the repetition).
There are a few other points I would like you to think about before you proceed.
It’s always good to throw in a cliché as early as possible, so let me throw you my first...
We are now living in a time when the only constant is change, and as the world around us develops, this book will go out of date. This book was written in the middle of 2011, and all examples quoted were current and relevant at that time. For instance, there is currently a declining market for CDs. I don’t know where the CD market will be in one year’s time, let alone five or ten years.
My hunch is the CD market will continue to decline as the download market exerts its dominance. However, my hunch about the future is irrelevant: Because most projections about the future turn out to be wrong, this book deals solely with the here and now. In reading this book and applying the principles, you need to consider changes that may have taken place since the book was written.
To give you an example of something that may change, look at the cost of CD reproduction. When CDs first came out, the reproduction costs were comparatively high. Today, the reproduction costs have fallen. My guess is the costs will continue to fall; however, that is a guess. If you are going to produce your own CD, you need to find the costs that will apply to you. The price you will pay will depend on many factors, including the number of CDs to be produced, the printing (on the CD and the booklet), and the location of the reproduction plant (you will find that costs in different countries and different cities within a country vary enormously).
I’m a Brit, and some of the data and examples quoted in this book come from UK sources. Where I’m quoting UK sources, the principles can be applied globally. However, there will be times when I quote UK data in order to highlight regional variations, and in these situations I will note that I am highlighting the variation.
To give you an example of regional variations, think about touring. Mainland United Kingdom is a few hundred miles in each direction (roughly 400 miles wide and 600 miles high). Within that area there is a population of 60 million people. By contrast, Australia has a population of around 20 million people but is roughly 3,000 miles wide and 2,000 miles high. The implications for physically reaching an audience if you are touring make the UK a far more efficient location.
However, if you look at gasoline (petrol) costs and compare the UK and the US, then the US is a much better place if you’re using road transportation.
I know my American friends think that you all pay a lot for gas, but what you pay is nothing compared to what we pay in Europe. At the moment (subject to regional variations within both countries), the price of gasoline in the U.S. is around $4.26 per gallon (which is nearly twice the level it was five years ago). By contrast, the price for a liter of petrol in the UK is around £1.40.
Converting liters to U.S. gallons (1 liter = 0.2642 gallons) and pounds to dollars (at the rate of $1 = £0.60), petrol in the UK is equivalent to nearly $8.83 per gallon—in other words, more than two times the price. This has implications for touring in the UK and Europe (where fuel costs are similar).
I am not going to look at all possible regional variations, because that would really get to be tiresome. Instead, I suggest that you make sure you understand how each factor discussed in this book can be affected by your local market conditions.
I should also point out that laws vary by country (and state). Please ensure that you make yourself aware of any legal requirements that apply to you.
This book is about how to develop and maintain a successful career in music. I have assumed a certain level of understanding/knowledge, and that you have the common sense to figure out how to make certain things happen. So for instance, this book does not explain:
How to write a song
How to sing in tune
How to find gigs (although I will talk about ways to use gigs to increase the size of your fan base)
How to get a CD pressed and the legal requirements associated with releasing a commercial recording
How to commission artwork for a poster and the necessary copyrights you should obtain in order to use the artwork.
We shouldn’t go any further without a word of caution: Be wary of things you don’t understand.
For instance, I don’t understand eBay. This is not a matter that I’m stupid—I can write a book, so I figure I must have a certain level of intelligence—however, I have never bought or sold anything on eBay; therefore, I don’t have the understanding that comes with experience in conducting a transaction on eBay. My perception, which is probably wrong and prejudiced, is that eBay is a place where other people sell their unwanted tat. I’ve got enough tat of my own without being taken in by my ignorance of the whole eBay process.
Now, I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t do anything that you haven’t done before. But rather, I’m suggesting that you recognize the things you don’t know (such as eBay for me), acknowledge this piece of learning that you still have to do, and proceed with caution (see Figure 1.5). If you’re going to do something new, research it first. Once you’ve researched it, try it in a small-scale way. Once you have some experience, refine what you’re doing in light of that experience, and then go for it in a big way.
Figure 1.5. If you have never done something before, start small and learn. Even if you have done something before, always be sure to keep improving what you are doing as you gain experience.
Whatever you do, please don’t risk your whole career and financial stability on something that only sounds like a good idea.
It is common sense that you should start small. In that way you will be less likely to make disastrous financial mistakes. However, you should always be sufficiently flexible to grow. Sometimes your system may be able to grow with you, and sometimes you may have to completely change what you are doing.
For instance, you might start off by sending out T-shirts by hand. If you are sending 10 or 20 T-shirts a week, that is quite feasible. However, if you suddenly have to send out 10,000 T-shirts, then you may have difficulties (although having an order for 10,000 T-shirts does sound like a nice problem to have).
You should also remember that you don’t have to employ only one solution for any problem. For instance, you can sell T-shirts at gigs but engage someone else (such as a fulfillment service, which I will discuss later) to send out your internet/mail orders.
Throughout this book, I make reference to various products and services. The mentions I make are not endorsements. I only mention these to illustrate the range of products/ services that are available. As always, you should undertake your own due diligence and only choose a product/service once you understand what you are taking on.
This chapter has introduced some of the main ideas that are discussed in this book. The remainder of the book fleshes out those ideas and looks at how you can implement them in a practical manner.
So if you’re ready, let’s move on to Part II, “The Fan Base,” and talk about the most important part of your career.